powder fantasy Ch2

The smell. That’s what would stick with them. The devastation was terrible to behold, but the smell. The smell of homes, livestock, and the people that couldn’t get away from the flames.

Some men dropped at the first full breath puking up anything that they could. Some dropped and just began to weep. Most of the men’s families lived in the sprawl.

The hollowed eyes of citizens looked on as they moved out. All the unsaid questions in their thousand yard stairs. Second thoughts filled the generals head as he ordered the me through the crowed. It wouldn’t take much for them to take out when hatred they had for whoever did this on his men.

The group parted as they went through. The general split them in large groups. To help with what was left of the fire, search the rubble for anyone still living, and some with him. He had sent a normal relief column out before this had all started and he needed to find them.

It was slow going. Streets clogged with rubble. Places he had known since childhood, now unrecognizable. Over it all the smell and screams. Forcing their way past his concentration.

That’s why he didn’t see the black robbed man until it was to late.

“The dark lord will return!” The words rang oddly clear in the generals ears. His eyes when wide as the pistol came up, he felt like he could see every detail. Single shot, cap user, large bore, round ball. He saw the hammer start to fall. With a flash the pistol went off. Searing pain bloomed from his shoulder. Thumps from behind him as the infantry with him got shots off. One man screaming as he passed the generals horse pierced the robbed man through with his bayonet. A thud as it entered the wall behind the now dying man was their grizzly reward.

The got the general down from his saddle pulling off coat and tearing shirt. The round ball had left a neat hole as it entered. It had remained in his shoulder. Voiced called for any healer. They had all spread out to help in the chaos.

“Never mind me. Push on and find the missing men.” He said to his aid. “Bind my arm.”

The general bit down on a thick piece of leather that had been given to him by one of the veteran infantry men that guarded him. With a hard pull on the bandage fire shot up and down his arm. Gritting his teeth hard into the leather.

“It will have to do for now.” A voice said over his shoulder. “We’ve got the bandage on there good, but the ball didn’t come out.”

He could have told them that he thought. He could feel the heavy weight of the projectile still in his arm. They got him to his feet and helped back into the saddle, just as a man that had went forward with his aid galloped into view. The man skidded to a halt. “We found them sir,” the man gasped out as he through up a salute.

“Lead on then son,” the general managed. They road to the wide lane that was the first slaughter of the charnel house of the sprawl. The solders still laid where they had fallen, or been thrown by the explosions. The holes in the wall like grim windows to no where. None of the men was still living. The street was awash with blood. Strung up in the middle of the road, the column’s leader. His clothes were torn. His face even in death seemed to scream out. Pinned to his chest, a piece of thick parchment. The rust red color of the ink.

“Sir that’s...”

“Yes. Yes it is son.” It was the dead mans blood.

The sound of the horses hooves echoed through the tunnel into the citadel. The rider holding himself up almost by will alone. Of all the long campaigns. The general couldn’t recall being this tired and weary. But this message had to be delivered. Then rest.

A small cadre of men walked into the light at the end of the tunnel. Ceremonial armor cutting a odd shadow in the light. The general came to a halt some paces from them. Sliding out of the saddle. Starting towards them with as much batting as he could manage with as tired as he was. One boot in front of the other. The sound of heels falling echoing off the tunnel walls. A man a the center of the group began to walk to meet him. Nice of him really. The generals vision was beginning to blur. Though he wasn’t conscious of the small stream of blood that was visible running down his hand. The approaching man started to jog, catching the general as he fell. The man, a young citadel captain, his features formed in the gloom of the tunnel to the generals eyes.

“Father!”

“I thought we agreed that we wouldn’t talk like that,” then he fell. The guard captain, caught him lowering him down yelling over his shoulder for a healer. “Have to see the king,” the general said as he tried to stand. “Will rest when I deliver the message.”

They helped him to his feet. They walked as fast as they could almost dragging the generals feet as they came out of the tunnel and into the light of the citadel court yard. The healer meeting then as they found somewhere to lay him.

“Call for the king!” The captain said.

The healer ignored the generals protests as he checked him over finding the entrance of the ball. Looking to see if shirt or jacket had been pulled in with it.

The King was still along the wall and heard the calls. Running down the wall as best he could to where the group was gathered. Coming to them as the healer began to cut his uniform out of the way of his wound.

“The lidless eye m’ lord” the general got out through gritted teeth as they probed around the wound. “They are responsible. Left there mark in the blood of our men.”

“We need to go my king. We will have him in the house of healing. If I get to work quickly he should be fine.” The last the healer, a hardened veteran of a field surgeon, said the the Citadel Captain who’s anxious face had drained of color. A stretcher had been found they quickly put the general on it and were of at a lock timed jog with the healer in the lead.

The Captain and the King were left in the silent central court. The Captain wiped at a blood satin on his uniform coat.

“Your father is one of the hardest men I know. He has endured much more than that flesh wound.” The king spoke out to the Captain. His hand reaching down to grip the prommal of the ancestral blade that was more a sign of the kingdom then of any crown.

“He mentioned the lidless eye my lord. What did he mean. What are they?”

“A hold over from a time long before us.” The king said kindly. “Come in let’s make your rounds and I can tell you.”

The thought of something as tawdry as he stood there in a uniform covered in the blood of he father, but the king had spoken. The forces of the Citadel remained at full alert. All the business with the king postponed until his security could be guaranteed.

As they walked the king talked about things that were far from what the Captain normally thought about, and while far from being unintelligent, was things that were the responsibility of people higher than himself. Maybe the King just needed someone to clear his head to before he entered a room full of me that expected to be told what the plan was. When they got to the section that could see the leagues distance to the river city they stopped. Something had happened. The attention of the watchers so taken up that they didn’t see or hear the two other men. Until the captain cleared his throat. They changed there positions as the other men looked thought the large field glasses.

“Someone is going to pay dearly for this.” It was the tone that the King said it that made the captains blood chill in his veins. “We will find them. And they will pay.”